Author, William Hussey, known as "the new master of dark fiction" visited The King’s School on 12 March 2010. The following is an extract from William's blog ...
“Last week, I was lucky enough to be invited by the Grantham and Barrowby Children’s Book Group (a really cool organisation that aims to get kids reading) into The King’s School in Grantham. King’s is an ancient school with beautiful buildings and a very famous ‘old boy’: Sir Isaac Newton! This connection was especially interesting for me as Sir Isaac was one of the few rational voices in the 17th Century who spoke out against the belief in evil spirits and the persecution of witches.
A brilliant scientist (or Natural Philosopher, as he may have been called in those days), his denunciation of witch hunts may have saved hundreds of lives.
A brilliant scientist (or Natural Philosopher, as he may have been called in those days), his denunciation of witch hunts may have saved hundreds of lives.
I had a wonderful time at the school, and we managed to squeeze in FOUR Witchfinder Events: that means we discovered an executed four dark witches. A very good result, I’m sure you’ll agree! The boys at the school (it’s a boys-only Grammar School) were brilliant, asking really bright questions about writing, publishing, the Witchfinder books etc, and getting fully involved in the event. We actually held a competition for the most interesting question, and this was won by Thomas Wharmby, who asked: what is your favourite word in the first book? The answer was ‘Demontide’, because it was a word I’d made up and, as ‘tide’ means ‘Time’ or ‘Age’, I thought ‘The Time of Demons’ or ‘The Age of Demons’ sounded pretty cool! Honourable mention must also be made of Elliot Scholefield, Declan Clark and Jake Wing, all of whom asked some very insightful questions. I signed lots of books and (weirdly!) lots of forearms—signing arms seemed to be a bit of a craze at King’s— don’t ask me why!!!
I’d like to thank all the staff at King’s and the wonderful people from G&B Children’s Book Club, including Linda Dawes, Louise Cann and Julia Jones, for making me feel so welcome.”
Extract from William Hussey’s Witchfinder Blog 16 March 2010
available from http://www.witchfinderbooks.co.uk/ [accessed 19/04/2010]
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